Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980), commonly referred to in the Western world as Mohammad Reza Shah, or simply the Shah, was the last monarch of Iran (Persia). In 1941 he succeded his father Reza Shah and ruled the Imperial State of Iran until the 1979 Iranian Revolution overthrew him, abolished the monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 1967, he took up the title Shahanshah (lit. 'King of Kings'), and also held several others, including Aryamehr (lit. 'Light of the Aryans') and Bozorg Arteshtaran (lit. 'Grand Army Commander'). He was the second and last ruling monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty. His dream of what he referred to as a "Great Civilization" (تمدن بزرگ) in Iran led to his leadership over rapid industrial and military modernization, as well as economic and social reforms.

During World War II, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran forced the abdication of Reza Shah and succession of Mohammad Reza Shah. During his reign, the British-owned oil industry was nationalized by the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had support from Iran's national parliament to do so; however, Mosaddegh was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, which was carried out by the Iranian military under the aegis of the United Kingdom and the United States. Subsequently, the Iranian government centralized power under the Shah and brought foreign oil companies back into the country's industry through the Consortium Agreement of 1954.

In 1963, Mohammad Reza Shah introduced the White Revolution, a series of reforms aimed at transforming Iran into a global power and modernizing the nation by nationalizing key industries and redistributing land. The regime also implemented Iranian nationalist policies establishing Cyrus the Great, the Cyrus Cylinder, and the Tomb of Cyrus the Great as popular symbols of Iran. The Shah initiated major investments in infrastructure, subsidies and land grants for peasant populations, profit sharing for industrial workers, construction of nuclear facilities, nationalization of Iran's natural resources, and literacy programs which were considered some of the most effective in the world. The shah also instituted economic policy tariffs and preferential loans to Iranian businesses which sought to create an independent economy for the nation. Manufacturing of cars, appliances, and other goods in Iran increased substantially, creating a new industrialist class insulated from threats of foreign competition. By the 1970s, the Shah was seen as a master statesman and used his growing power to pass the 1973 Sale and Purchase Agreement. These reforms culminated in decades of sustained economic growth that would make Iran one of the fastest-growing economies among both the developed world and the developing world. During his 37-year-long rule, Iran spent billions of dollars' worth on industry, education, health, and military spending and saw economic growth rates exceeding the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The Iranian national income rose 423 times over, and the country saw an unprecedented rise in per capita income—which reached the highest level of any point in Iran's history—and high levels of urbanization. By 1977, the Shah's focus on defense spending, which he saw as a means to end foreign powers' intervention in the country, had culminated in the Iranian military standing as the world's fifth-strongest armed force.

As political unrest grew throughout Iran in the late 1970s, Mohammad Reza Shah's position in the country was made untenable by the Jaleh Square massacre, in which the Iranian military killed and wounded dozens of protesters in Tehran, and the Cinema Rex fire, an arson attack in Abadan that was erroneously blamed on the Iranian intelligence agency SAVAK. The 1979 Guadeloupe Conference saw the Shah's Western allies state that there was no feasible way to save the Iranian monarchy from being overthrown. The Shah ultimately left Iran for exile on 17 January 1979. Although he had told some Western contemporaries that he would rather leave the country than fire on his own people, estimates for the total number of deaths during the Islamic Revolution range from 540 to 2,000 (figures of independent studies) to 60,000 (figures of the Islamic government). After formally abolishing the Iranian monarchy, Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini assumed leadership as the Supreme Leader of Iran. Mohammad Reza Shah died in exile in Egypt, where he had been granted political asylum by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Following his death, his son Reza Pahlavi declared himself the new shah of Iran in exile.